Home automation, or smart homes, has enhanced the quality of life of their users. A home automation system may enable centralized control of lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), appliances, and other systems, thus providing improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency, and security. Some automation systems provide a way to automate the control of a device based on timed or environmental factors, such as in an HVAC unit or a sprinkler system. However, these typical automation systems provide automated control for an individual type of appliance, and the different automation systems do not interface with one another to provide a complete home automation solution.
In contrast, in a smart home, electrical devices/appliances in the house are integrated together to provide convenience and a better living experience for its users. Moreover, the ubiquitousness of the Internet connection has also made it possible for a user to monitor and/or control his home remotely. For example, a true smart home may allow a user, while away from the home, to monitor activities in his home; and remotely turn on/off various home appliances, arm security measures, or track air quality indicators. Monitoring and control of various aspects of the habitable space, weather home, office or other types of spaces, has long been the goal of smart home systems. Unfortunately, this goal has proven difficult to achieve in practice. Currently available and proposed smart systems have not been able to keep up with an increasing number of components (e.g., sensors, controls, and appliances) that could be monitored and controlled. Further, even limited systems have proven to be expensive and difficult to operate. Most significantly, such systems often require a great deal of cost and effort to install, requiring wiring, including pulling cable and modifications to building infrastructures which make them difficult, if not impossible to use.
For example, typical home automation technologies are often implemented using specially designed control and monitor devices that that can be under the control of a third-party service. In the example of the home surveillance system, the surveillance system controller is connected to various specially designed sensors and/or cameras provided by the service provider. When the home owner contracts the service provider to install the service, the service provider may sell or lease each controller and sensor to the home owner at a premium. To make matters worse, the home owner may also need to pay a monthly subscription fee to the service provider to monitor and maintain the surveillance system. Hence, installing and using these third-party systems can be a large expense to users that prefer to install, configure, and monitor their own home automation system.
In general, it would be beneficial to provide apparatuses (e.g., systems and devices) that are capable of forming a network for use in controlling and/or monitoring a habitable space (e.g., home, apartment, office, factory, etc.).